PART TWO: FROM CHARMING TO IMPORTANT
QUOTED
"Endeavor's efforts to support high-impact entrepreneurship are critical to catalyzing positive social change on a global scale."
Matt Bannick Omidyar Network Managing Partner Endeavor Global Board Member
MAKING HEADWAY IN THE MIDDLE EAST
WITH A STRONG TEAM in place, Endeavor set out to transform entrepreneurship in the Middle East and North Africa. The region faced daunting challenges. The traditional models of govern- ment employment seemed unsustainable; an exploding generation of educated youth could no longer depend on the public sector for the type of stable jobs upon which their parents had relied. Unemployment rates soared; the World Bank announced that 100 million new jobs would have to be created in the region by 2020. Like Latin America in the late 1990s, however,
with an additional usd $8 million, making the firm's combined contributions the largest donation in Endeavor's history. Omidyar Network funded Endeavor's newly-launched investment vehicle and became the lead sponsor of Endeavor Insight. [See page 25 for details on Endeavor Catalyst]. With Omidyar Network's support, Insight's metrics-driven reports have enabled Endeavor to prove that high-impact entrepreneurs have an outsized influence on their economies.
CLICK HERE TO WATCH AMR SPEAK AT THE 2012 MILKEN GLOBAL CONFERENCE
ENTREPRENEUR SPOTLIGHT
AMR SHADY
COMPANY T.A. TELECOM
INDUSTRY TECHNOLOGY
SELECTED 2011
COUNTRY EGYPT
Amr Shady has honed in on a solution that creates value for the cost-savvy prepaid mobile customer while also generating revenues for mobile operators. His BUZZ! Platform sends breaking news to over three million subscribers in Egypt, the UAE, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan. Since being selected in
March 2011—in the midst of the Arab Spring in Cairo— Amr has participated in virtually every program
the Middle East lacked a business culture that nurtured and supported entrepreneurship. Endeavor began expansion in the Middle East with Jordan, a small, resource-poor coun- try with a budding entrepreneurial technology sector. Endeavor quickly identified a number of companies with regional expansion opportuni- ties in the fast-growing Arab-language consumer internet sector. Think Arabia, for example, cre- ated a cartoon short for Google that received over one million views within a month of its release. Meanwhile customer review site Jeeran received funding in 2012 from Silicon Valley accelerator
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